Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors is a French/North American animated TV show which first aired on September 16, 1985. It was produced by DIC Entertainment (originally distributed for syndication by SFM Entertainment), and animated by Japanese animation studios KK C&D Asia, Sunrise, Studio Shaft, Studio Giants, Studio Look and Swan Production. The show was a 65-Episode Cartoon, created to support Mattel's toy line (which was called simply Wheeled Warriors, and which had no particular story or characters of its own). The show features an ongoing plot; however, like many shows made at the time, it does not have a series finale, and thus the plot was left unresolved. Although a movie was intended to close out the plotlines, it never came to be. J. Michael Straczynski has claimed that his script for the film, completely written, remains with him.

As usual for an 80s show, there are two dueling forces— the human-composed Lightning League, who pilot heavily-armed white and silver vehicles, and are led by Jayce. The other faction are the Monster Minds, organic green vegetable-based creatures who tend to take the shape of black and green vehicles. They travel via large green organic vines which can grow in and across interstellar space, that sprout seeds that rapidly grow into further Monster Minds, and are led by Saw Boss.

Before the start of the show, Audric, a galactically famous scientist, began a project to produce a miracle crop and end hunger. Unfortunately for him, a solar flare released radiation that mutated his plant (and several others around his lab) into evil sentient creatures called the Monster Minds. Audric created a magic root that could destroy the Monster Minds, but was forced to flee before he could join the two halves. He gave one to his servant, a living suit of armor named Oon, to give to his son, Jayce. Jayce and his friends form the Lightning League who travel the galaxy battling the Monster Minds and searching for Audric to unite the magic root and lead his Lightning League to victory over the changing form of Saw Boss.

Tropes:

Artifact of Doom: The magical root that can destroy Saw Boss and the Monster Minds. In a subversion, the artifact is a threat to the villains instead of the heroes. There is also the Helmet of Valroth which eventually possesses Jayce.

Expy: Herc Stormsailor is pretty much Han Solo with the serial numbers (and apparently a few brain cells) filed off. Other members of the Lightning League also have clear Star Wars parallels (see Follow the Leader on the Trivia page), but Herc is without competition the most blatant one.

Green Lantern Ring: Jayce's Ring of Light, AKA The Ring Of Plot Resolution. However, he can't simply command it to One-Hit Kill Saw Boss and save everyone a lot of running around; it's implied the ring only works in situations where there's no other way out. In one episode ("Bloodstone") you can see a face in the ring's light, further implying the ring is alive and decides when its help is and isn't necessary. Although Jayce was too much of a righteous dude to ask for its help when he didn't absolutely need it anyway.

Market-Based Title: A number of dubbed versions are known by some name that isn't "Wheeled Warriors". Examples include "Jayce et les Conquerants de la Lumière" ("...and the Warriors of Light"; French), and "...e os Guerreiros do Espaço" (...and the Warriors of Space; Brazil), although the Spanish dub was called "...y los Guerreros Rodantes", which is similar to the English name.

Merchandise-Driven: Early on, this results in a few weird, out-of-place bits of dialogue, such as Gillian announcing he's installed "stack and attack mode" in the vehicles- and even then, that's not what that's supposed to mean (in the toyline, it referred to how the smaller Lightning League vehicles could detach from their wheels and attach on top of Armed Force; in the show, it referred to the ability to swap weapons between vehicles- which doesn't make much sense name-wise). The toy line didn't do very well when it debuted, and the writers didn't work around those constraints.

Unrealistic Black Hole: The heroes are able to create one in an episode to destroy a large colony of Master Mines, and it is suggested the place had "almost enough destiny" to collapse into one already.

Villain Teleportation: Saw Boss uses "the power of the black light" to teleport his headquarters from place to place.

Wizards Live Longer: Gillian combines this with Really 700 Years Old. He casually mentions visiting places 600 years ago, and says at one point that a thousand years isn't all that long a time to wait for something.

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